So while at the shop this saturday Krux got the ShopBot moving and doing at last! It seems like the frame is square and all the parts are in their correct orientation because the logo turned out great. Good job!
Two minutes of the most annoying sound I’ve ever made. =P I may stick with this circuit, however if possible I’d like to find another schematic that produces a different tone… in a deeper pitch. It would also be very nice if when my hands weren’t near the photo resistors the sound would just stop. Even I have a threshold for irritating.
Imagine a whole field of these guys swaying, bobbing and dancing in sync to the thoughts and mental cues of their Mommy, myself. Count on seeing it for real this summer…! Now that Christmas is over I can afford to focus some more attention on getting that army of delta robots made. I’m still not sure if I’ll have the volume featured above ready in time for the Mini Maker Faire next month (in fact there is no way), but I’m going to try like hell to have an array of at least four to show off. Do these look familiar? YES, YES, They do! I disassembled my two prototypes from the summer this afternoon and have started compiling them into one better working robot. I have enough regular sized servo motors to make exactly four deltas, so I’ll use what I’ve got. In other news, I’ll be doing my soldering…
Time to talk about the amazing thing that happened this weekend… It feels like I have been waiting forever and it’s crazy to know that everyone else has been waiting five times longer than I have… but finally, FINALLY the keys were given over to us and the SYN Shop is for the most part, ALIVE and open. The wait began for me towards the end of this summer when my dad brought me an article promoting the shop and its booth at the upcoming First Friday. He prompted me to read it claiming he had found the thing I had been searching for in the Vegas community. It was true that ever since I had moved back to my native city from college in Chicago, I was craving the type of environment I had in my technology department… a sort of studio space but for tech geeks and the…
This weekend I was faced with many new challenges. I etched the first circuit I’ve ever designed in Eagle and with the help of my friends as well as Mark’s fancy tools, I also learned to surface mount all the tiny bits onto it! What you see above is the product of lots of patient help and fruitful collaboration. Thank you to Krux as always for developing the code and teaching me the various processes along the way. I am a better nerd than I was a week, or three weeks ago. This is indeed the brain of our first spawn; first of many. I will outline the production of the project now. Like the ‘3D Light’ goggles, I began with all the exterior embellishments, black and white mirrored motif in leather to complete the othello look…: With the leather pieces in place, I then soldered my RGB piranhas to…
I began my second set of goggles a couple of weeks ago and have since finished all the neat cosmetic parts on the exterior. Just like the name suggests, they are all in black and white, one eyepiece black with white trim, the other eyepiece its opposite. With the artsy part finished, this weekend I started on the electronic portion and wired up a breadboard with all my componants : three bat switches for each color channel of an RGB LED and a toggle button to switch between the LEDs housed in the two separate eyepieces. For this project I am using the ATTiny 2313 microcontroller, supplied to me by Krux. As I have never used anything other than the arduino, he is also helping me yet again with the programming portion. This is a learning experience for both of us, so hopefully I can jump up the latter as quickly…
October is one of my favorite months and it has been quite a memorable one so far. I have taken a brief breather from developing my delta army and engaged in a playful dialogue with a fellow techie at our local Hacker space here in town. He has an impressive collection of self-made steam punk inspired goggles, of which he is currently underway with his fourth pair. In response to this stellar practice, I have created my own version… a retro leather-trimmed set that has some nifty chain-switch activated light pipe around the lenses to give the illusion of neon. Check out Krux’s hand-made goggles on his page : krux.org/gallery/mk2goggles I also want to thank him for helping me work past some brain farts along the way with this project. =] Alas, here is the outline: First I started by cutting and embellishing all the leather trimmings. The ‘V’ shaped…
First of all, thank you Mark for printing out my delta bits for me and photographing them. I will be in my native Vegas next week visiting home and am looking forward to building up my next prototype while there, as well as seeing everyone from the shop.
So, my friends at the local hackerspace have convinced me to have the parts for my deltas 3D printed rather than continuing to mod plastic spoons and hangers like some third world scavenger. What a novel concept! Now that I have moved and gotten somewhat settled in, I had some time this weekend to play around with SketchUp. I took my 2D plans that I made in illustrator and built them up in 3D. I was surprised how simple this was once I stopped over thinking it. I’m sure these aren’t perfect yet, but I wont know until I’m holding the outcome in my hands. For anyone who didn’t know these existed (like me until not too long ago) check out these relatively affordable 3D printers. They are completely amazing at what they do and have opened up a whole new realm of possibility for me: MAKERBOT
I finally got to play around with the code last night. I’ve been preparing to move for a job these past few weeks and haven’t gotten as much play time in as I’d like. Again my goal (for now) is to have the wiichuck control the movement of the robot and the color of the light (which will go on the effector end). First off… I am not nearly skilled enough to have written this code all by myself so I’d like give credit to the people who posted this project: Wiichuck Controlled Delta Robot. This was a huge help for me while prototyping. I also want to thank my friend Krux for writing the c RGB LED bit in the beginning of this video! I mashed these two elements together and voila! PROGRESS: Also! I’m impressed with this guy’s resourcefulness. He managed to make an even less expensive and easier…